SCIE statement

Cavendish report on healthcare assistants and support workers

10 July 2013

SCIE response to the independent review led by Camilla Cavendish into Healthcare Assistants
and Support Workers in the NHS and social care settings

As Camilla Cavendish points out in her review of support workers in social care, "the phrase 'basic care'
dramatically understates the work of this group". I could not agree more. Delivering high quality, innovative
and person-centred care, where people using services are treated with dignity and respect, cannot be achieved
without recognising and supporting the vital contribution that staff make.

The review makes a number of important recommendations to improve recruitment, training and education and to
ensure we get the best out of people through good leadership, supervision and support. At SCIE, we have
developed a range of resources that can help to achieve these objectives and give staff confidence about the
care they are providing, and the improvements they can achieve. Key areas include safeguarding, supervision,
personalisation and dementia. We are keen to work with our partners, in particular Skills for Care, the
National Academy for Social Care and provider associations, to make sure that we support staff to deliver
the high quality care we all want to see.